


The Eighth Bird

by MaggieRose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angus-centric, Gen, Major Spoilers for The Stolen Century
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-11-23 04:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11395473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieRose/pseuds/MaggieRose
Summary: The Twins, The Lover, The Protector, The Journal Keeper, The Peacemaker, The Wordless One, and the Ageless Prodigy.





	1. Prologue

The moon was simultaneously much smaller and quite a bit bigger than Magnus, Merle, or Taako had ever expected it to be. The three of them took one last look at the Voidfish, now visible in all its massive splendor following their inoculation, as a guard in a neat blue uniform led them out of the central dome and out onto a grassy quad. 

Without the overwhelming dizziness from before, the three of them were able to really take in the bizarre base they had found themselves on for what it was. Classical music, probably a piece by Johann, filtered out of loudspeakers placed among the trees lining the paths between domes. They passed a magnificent library, a large dome containing what appeared to be apartments, and multitudes of smaller office domes as they followed the guard to the edge of the compound, where the largest and most imposing dome on the moon’s surface stood.

Unlike the majority of the other structures, which were smooth and clearly more for easy internal regulation than aesthetics, the dome before them was built from smaller panels put together in geometric shapes that looked like they should be stained glass instead of immaculately polished and clear. Above the entrance was a panel larger than the rest, set slightly out and engraved with a massive Bureau of Balance logo inlayed with silver.

The guard led them inside and stopped, then nodded curtly and went back through the massive sliding doors. The three adventures looked at each other, shrugged, and pressed forward, ready to meet this mysterious leader they’d been hearing about.

They followed the long, presentational carpet further into the room where it ended at a large dais, and stopped dead in their tracks.

They didn't know what exactly they had expected The Director, always said with such audible capitalization, to look like, but the person before them was the complete opposite of any half formed notions they may have had. They had all at least come to the conclusion that The Director would be someone… refined. Someone older, dignified, and oozing with gravitas. 

Instead… well. 

No elaborate cloak or gown, but rather a dorky sweater vest and bow tie combo. No ancient, weathered staff crackling with ancient power, but rather a magnifying glass clenched in slightly pudgy fingers. No deep lines beside wise eyes, but rather coke bottle glasses that looked stolen from a comic book portrayal of a nerd.

The Director was nothing like what they had expected, because the director was a little boy.

“I'm so glad to have you three here,” he said joyfully, “welcome to the Bureau of Balance!”


	2. Chapter 2

The Inter-Planar Research and Exploration Headquarters was a large facility, ornate and luxurious and located right in the center of the continental capital, and Angus McDonald was feeling very, very small.

Smaller than usual, that is. The glass walls of the facility's atrium formed a geometrically patterned ceiling far, far above his head, light catching and shining on the glossy marble flooring and the massive fountain before him. He was struck for the millionth time in the past several days by the magnitude of what he was about to undertake, and felt a small surge of adrenaline at the thought.

Angus was startled out of his reverie by a large, clearly strong hand clasping his shoulder from behind.

"You lost, kiddo?"

Angus looked up and into the sunglasses-clad face of Magnus Burnsides, the security officer of his soon-to-be crew. He wasn't technically supposed to know who Magnus was, the crew list for the expedition was still classified information, but he had done some digging on everyone he was supposed to be spending the next several months with. He got this job by being “a nosey little fuck,” ashe was often called, and he was going to survive it by staying one.

"Oh, no sir, I'm not lost," he said, turning to face Magnus, "I was just taking in the facility for a moment. It's pretty amazing, right?"

Magnus blinked for a moment, then shook his head slightly.

"It's a little gaudy for my tastes, actually, and you thinking this place is pretty doesn't answer the question of what you're even doing here."

"You didn't ask that question, sir."

Magnus narrowed his eyes.

"Not to say I won't answer it, of course," Angus stammered quickly, "I'm going to be one of your crewmates on the Starblaster. I'm not supposed to know who you are, but I do anyway. You're Magnus Burnsides."

Angus stuck out his very, very small hand for Magnus to shake.

"And I'm Angus McDonald: freelance detective and, as of today, intelligence and research officer for the IPRE's inaugural expedition. I’m very excited to work with you!"

~~~~~

Angus had read every word in existence on every member of his new crew the moment he'd received his acceptance letter for the mission, but no printed word could've prepared him for what these people are actually like.

He didn't think that Magnus would be so rude, or that Barry would stammer so much, or that Merle would say so many weird things about plants, or that Lucretia would be so shy, or that Captain Davenport would be so cold, or that the twins-

Well, actually, the twins were pretty much exactly what he had expected them to be. That is to say, completely overwhelming.

Davenport was speaking, going over plans for their brief training and describing the ship, and when he finally reached the end of his points and set his notes aside he looked up at the table with folded hands.

"Now, if you all wouldn't mind introducing yourselves to one another? I would've liked to have had this done before rambling on for an hour, but HQ was very firm on me getting some information out of the way first. As you know I am Davenport, and I will be your Captain for this mission. Lucretia? Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself."

Lucretia, who had been writing rather intently, jumped when she was addressed. 

"Well, you all just heard my name,” she said quietly, “I'm Lucretia, and I will be your chronicler for this mission. I'm a biographer by trade, but I will also be making visual records of any flora, fauna, or structures we encounter in other planes throughout our travels.”

“Flora, nice,” Merle said loudly from directly across the table, exaggeratedly winking. 

There was a moment of awkward silence, and Davenport cleared his throat and gestured to Lucretia to continue.

“That’s sort of all there is to, well, me I suppose.”

“I’m Magnus, and I kick ass. Next.” Magnus crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair forcefully, which wobbled almost enough to fall backwards before Magnus ungracefully steadied himself.

The table looked quickly away from Magnus’s failed attempt at hiding a blush and expectantly at Barry Bluejeans, who was sitting next to Magnus and turned as red as a tomato just from being given a modicum of attention.

“I’m, uh, I’m-”

“C’mon nerd if you don’t say your name I’ll make one up for you, and that won’t be fun for you I don’t think,” interrupted Lup from her place beside him. She moved her sharp-heeled boot from its place in front of her up on the table to in front of Barry, placing her whole body at an angle that felt like a condescendingly raised eyebrow magnified by 12.

“Barry Bluejeans,” he choked, “I’m the general science officer and my name is Barry J. Bluejeans.”

“That’s a buckwild fuckin’ name,” Lup crossed her ankles on the table, still very much in Barry’s space. “I’m Lup, and I’m real good at setting shit on fire. Like, really good at it.”

“And I’m Taako, from TV.”

Another fairly awkward silence fell. Taako sighed and waved an expertly manicured hand through the air as he continued.

“ I guess for now I’m also good at cooking and turning shit into other shit or whatever, but it’s called positive visualization, kemosabes. If I say I’m from TV I’ll make it on TV one day, just-”

“Just like in The Secret!” Angus piped up. Everyone turned to stare as he continued.

“It doesn’t seem very likely to me that the best way to get something is just to want it really badly, but I hope it works out for you, sir.”

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence once more, as the seven adults in the room looked bewilderedly between Angus and each other. The silence was heavy, almost suffocating, but Angus had known that his colleagues would undoubtedly have some trouble with a ten (almost eleven) year old being among them, and chose to ignore the situation completely until someone asked a pertinent question.

“I guess I should introduce myself, too,” he said, “My name is Angus McDonald, and I’m the world’s greatest detective. I know that sounds like I’m bragging but I’m really not, I just care a lot about knowing stuff. I’ll be our intelligence and research officer, and I’m so glad to be working with all of you!”

The world seemed to stay paused for just another moment, and then Merle finally broke the silence.

“Why the fuck is there a toddler in here?”

Angus felt his heart sink and his shoulders droop. He was expecting resistance, not outright dismissal.

“I’m ten years old actually, sir, almost eleven, so I’m certainly not a toddler, and-”

Davenport cut Angus off.

“Angus is a rather unique member of the team, but I expect all of you to treat him with respect. We all have our... differences, and he was chosen by the same selection committee that chose all of you. Merle, if you would give your introduction, so we can finish up?” 

“Pretty shitty selection committee, but alright. I’m Merle Hightower Highchurch, and I do biology and medicine. If you ever want to talk about Pan,” Merle pointed to himself and winked, “I’m your man.”

“Thank you Merle,” said Davenport, rising from his chair, “and thank you all for your cooperation. I’m eager to work with all of you. That’s all the time we have for today, but if any of you have any questions or concerns for me please feel free to come by my office this evening.”

The door clicked behind Davenport, and Angus once again felt the full weight of his crewmates’ gazes as they turned back towards him. All at once Angus was overwhelmed, and gave only a tiny wave before standing quickly and bolting from the room, rushing away full of adrenaline and anxiety.  
~~~~~

Several hours later, Angus figured it was probably safe to go to Davenport and talk about the elephant in the room. He stood outside his office door, fist raised to knock, when he realized there was already a discussion happening inside.

“I wasn’t expecting responsibility over a child on a very dangerous mission, Captain. I don’t think I’m comfortable with this,” came Lucretia’s quiet voice through the door.

“Yeah really,” chimed in Magnus, “I love kids, but fuck, dude.”

Angus heard a small chorus of voices hum their agreement, and dropped his hand.

“Listen, Dav, can I call you Dav?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Look, I’m uneasy enough with Lucretia and Magnus being like, what, 15? There are too many kids on board as it is. I’m not changing any fucking diapers.”

Magnus started to say something indignant, but Lucretia cut him off,

“I’m 21, Merle, and Magnus is 23, but excepting your erroneous diaper association I do have to agree with you again regarding Angus. Captain Davenport, sir-”

“Cap’nport.”

Lucretia continued as if she hadn’t heard Magnus interrupt,

“I was overjoyed when I was chosen for this mission, despite what I had thought would be a significant age disadvantage. However, if the reason for that was that age was completely and utterly not taken into consideration in the selection process, then I may have to reevaluate my acceptance of the mission. I cannot fathom taking a child, especially one as sweet as Angus seems to be, into unpredictable levels of danger.”

Davenport sighed deeply.

“I understand all of your concerns. I share them, in fact. I was chosen at the same time as all of you, and despite being your captain I personally had no influence over the hiring process. I demanded answers as soon as I saw his profile, but all HQ would say is that he’s “special.” If it were up to me, Angus wouldn’t be here at all. That being said-”

At this point, Angus stopped listening. He was a research gatherer, but there was only so much he could take.

The contracts with the IPRE were already signed. This team was already set in stone, and they were going to fly with him whether they liked it or not. Angus knew he was capable, he knew that he was going to be a valuable addition to this mission.

All he had to do now was prove it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to update this sometime later this week, and keep on truckin from there with weekly or biweekly updates. If you read just this much I already love you, and if you stick with me I'll love you even more


	3. Chapter 3

The morning of what Angus would look back on as the morning of the apocalypse had seemed nothing but brilliant at the time. Angus was vaguely aware of the concerned murmurings of the people gathered for the Starblaster’s departure, had noticed in an offhand way eerie stillness of the darkened sky, but for one of the first times in his life Angus wasn’t searching every sensory input for deeper meaning. He was too excited, too focused on containing his nervous energy, to give any lingering thought to how unusually dull the colors of the IPRE logo looked on the banners hung beside the red carpet leading onto the Starblaster.

Angus’s chest filled with an indescribable feeling as he and the other seven members of his crew walked down the center of the gathered crowd to the ship. He worked very hard to control a manic grin from spreading across his face and walked out onto the deck, waving with as much dignity as he could muster as the bond engine began to spin and hum.

All of Angus’s attempts to seem unaffected and mature were forgotten as the Starblaster lifted off and the crowds of onlookers began to shrink in the distance. Angus grabbed the railing of the deck and gazed down at his vanishing city, knuckles white and face split with a massive grin.

Then, all at once, there was nothing left to grin about.

Fear, cold and severe, gripped Angus’s heart as the Starblaster passed out of the prime material plane and the unnaturally still storm revealed, finally, what it was there to do. Massive black columns streaked with vibrant color were falling from it, smashing into Angus’s home world with devastating force. The tendrils were all around the ship, too, even this far above the material plane. Angus could hear Davenport screaming into his communicator at HQ as he dodged and weaved around the obstacles, receiving only silence in return.

“I’m going!” he shouted out to the crew, “We’ll regroup in the next plane but we can’t stay here.”

No one objected, either too terrified or too numb from shock to suggest trying to go back to help, and Davenport guided the ship further up into the weird, jiggling void between planes. The rotating circles of the planar system vanished into the opalescent force as the Starblaster passed through whatever made up the wobbly barrier, and then-

Angus couldn’t even comprehend what happened to him as his body entered the incomprehensible space between worlds. He was frozen stock still and moving in every different direction, he was being torn into a thousand pieces and compressed with more force than he thought possible, he was everywhere and nowhere all at once; dimly, he was aware of the specters of his teammates being thrown out in every conceivable direction alongside his own.

The overwhelming shock of experiencing existence passed in a way time couldn’t describe, and then he was back on the deck of the Starblaster, his hands still glued to the railing of the bow. The ship was still moving, but seemed inexplicably to have been turned completely around. Angus looked back through the window to the helm at Davenport, who made panicked eye contact with him for a brief moment and then steeled his features, staring straight ahead towards the approaching planar system.

“Is it… gone?” Asked Barry hopefully, noticing as they all had the distinct lack of any world-destroying entities in their field of view.

“Depends on which ‘it’ you’re referring to, sir,” replied Angus.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s gone,” said Lucretia, walking up to stand by Angus at the bow.

“This isn’t our planar system.”

 

~~~~~

Davenport gave up on trying to get back through to their home plane pretty quickly, and flew back to begin flying them over the vibrant landscape of this new material plane. It was a half-hearted attempt at finding a purpose here, and the next few days on the ship were uncomfortable as they surveyed the planet below. Angus spent most of his time taking notes- he and Lucretia dragged a table and chairs out onto the deck and settled in with their notebooks to document everything they could see in their respective writing forms.

The rest of the crew didn’t have such a clear objective. Every time Angus walked past the storage room he could hear Magnus rustling around, counting and recounting every item inside. Lup and Barry dragged another table outside near Angus and Lucretia to act as impromptu cartographers, occasionally calling on Lucretia’s artistic ability to smooth out their rough renditions of the world below at the end of the day or when the eight of them took a break for lunch. Food was usually prepared solo by Taako, who took to tossing a conjured ball up and down and napping in inconvenient places when he wasn’t cooking. This usually lured Davenport away from his sleepless position at the helm to yell at them at least once a day. Merle took over flying the ship whenever this happened, and stepped right back to his place at the captain’s side as soon as he was done with his reprimand. 

When The Light of Creation fell, Angus happened to be looking right at it. He had been thinking intently, trying to figure out how to ask Merle what he thought the biological differences between the animals of this plane and the animals they had always known must be, when it streaked through the distant sky.  
Lup, who had been tossing Taako’s ball up and down by herself while Taako napped on the floor nearby, vanished her toy and darted to the railing of the ship, calling out numbers and moving her hands as if measuring something.

“Wait, wait, I lost track of where we are!” Cried Barry from their table, rustling frantically through the pages of maps and notes, “I can’t triangulate if I don’t know where the points are!”

“I’ve got it, keep talking!” said Angus, who had started taking down Lup’s data points completely on instinct.

With Angus’s help, Barry and Lup were able to sketch out a rough area in which the Light might have fallen. The appearance of the Light broke Davenport out of his surveillance rut somewhat and he guided the ship down; the team set up a camp, ready to actually begin their search for the Light and for a way to live on this planet.

A few days after they made camp the sky went black and white, filling with hateful eyes. The IPRE collectively stopped dead in its tracks, gazes glued to the sky and feet planted firmly in place, and then the moment passed. The sky was blue again, if not the purple they all wanted it to be, and they moved on with their mission.

 

~~~~~

Angus hit a wall with the rest of the team pretty quickly.

“It wasn’t like I was going to just stay on the ship the whole time if the mission had gone normally, why should I be glued to it now?”

Barry coughed slightly and looked away as Taako and Lup shared a sidelong glance.

It had been a month and a half, and Barry and the twins had been studying the grunt-based language of the animals with minimal success. Angus, meanwhile, had been stuck on the ship with Lucretia. She was good company most of the time, but she had been drawing the same plant for three days and Angus was starting to go stir crazy.

“Sirs, Madam, I speak six languages. I can help with this,” he argued. To his horror and embarrassment, he heard a very nearly tearful quaver in his voice.

Clearly, Barry could hear it too.

“God, god okay you can come with us. God please don’t start crying.”

“Thank you, sir!” Angus said, bouncing on the balls of his feet slightly before regaining his composure. “I promise I won’t let you down.”

“Way to go, Barold,” muttered Taako, clearly thinking Angus was out of earshot after 15 minutes of walking along a well-trodden path. “Kid fuckin’ played you.”

“You think he was faking it? Being about to cry, I mean?” Barry sounded like the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind, and frankly it hadn’t crossed Angus’s either.

“There’s no way in hell a kid that smart doesn’t know how to fake tears to get what he wants,” said Lup loudly from a few feet ahead. Angus had no idea how she could’ve gotten it into her head that elvish wasn’t one of the six languages he knew, but either she didn’t realize he was understanding her or she didn’t care. “You’re on babysitting duty, nerdo. This one’s on you.”

Angus resisted the urge to insist that he didn’t need babysitting, and instead quietly filed away fake crying as an idea for later. If he was going to be seen as a child, he figured, he may as well use it to his advantage. It wouldn’t work on any of these three now, of course, but Angus was reasonably certain that Magnus at least could probably be swayed by some crocodile tears.

After a few more minutes of walking, a newcomer came running up the path to greet them. A baby mongoose skittered onto Lup’s offered palm and up onto her shoulder, and said something that Lup, Taako, and Barry all mimicked.

Angus wrote down the best approximation of the sound he could next to Greeting, then tried it out himself. 

The baby mongoose leaped from Lup’s shoulder over to Taako’s and stopped, looking at Angus expectantly. Angus let the mongoose climb into his open palms, and brought them up to eye-contact level.

The baby mongoose repeated the greeting, cocking their head slightly.

Angus greeted them back.

The mongoose ran in a tight circle across Angus’s hands and then sprinted up to his shoulder, chattering the whole way. Barry was taking frantic notes in Angus’s discarded notebook, and Taako and Lup were visibly taken aback.

“So,” Angus grinned, “aside from a greeting, what else do we know?”

 

~~~~~

Angus’s presence proved to be just the thing the baby mongoose’s parents needed to feel safe enough to come out and help teach the language, and with their help the four person team was conversational in the grunting communication within three months. They practiced near constantly, to the consternation of the other four members of the team. Their favorite way to practice was shittalking Merle over dinner, which became a bonding activity in its own right. Angus could tell that Barry and the twins didn’t fully trust him or view him as an equal yet, but they were coming around to respecting him. It was a start.

The grunting language was far enough from anything Angus had ever learned before that he abandoned his translation notebook pretty quickly, but once the mongoose family began talking about their culture he started writing again. He wrote about their history, about their relationships with other animals, and, most importantly, about the Royal Beasts. It became apparent to Angus pretty quickly that the Beasts had the Light- the rapid advancement near the capital that the mongoose family had heard tell of couldn’t be anything else.

Angus wanted to head out to try and meet with the Royal Beasts immediately, but Merle and Davenport insisted on at least checking at the drop point Lup and Barry had first calculated for the Light. They were gone for ages, having set off on foot, and by the time they returned nearly a year had passed since the Starblaster had first arrived on the planet. 

When they finally made the trip to meet the Royal Beasts, it was on a day that seemed more tense than most. Angus noticed the similarity between the stillness above and the dark force he had seen occupying his own home’s sky a year before, but didn’t comment on it. Everyone else had noticed too, he could tell. No one wanted to be the one to bring it up.

It became clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that the animals had been making use of the Light as soon as the IPRE landed near the capital. Structures and infrastructure were being built everywhere they looked, and the Court of the Royal Beasts was the crown jewel of the burgeoning city. Animals of all types were milling about, casting suspicious glances at these strange creatures in their midst.

Magnus opened his mouth to start yelling, probably about the Bear of Power, but Lucretia slapped a hand over his mouth before he could cause more of a scene than the group’s presence already had. At this point a massive boar, at least 10 feet long, approached the group.

“I am a guard of this city, and of the Court of the Royal Beasts. State your purpose immediately.”

“We mean no harm,” replied Barry, as politely as he could in the face of this very intimidating creature, “we wish to seek audience with the Royal Beasts.”

The boar guard snorted, and Angus couldn’t tell if it was from amusement or anger.

“The Beasts have already been made aware of your presence. You will have to have a very good reason to give for why you should have an audience, rather than a trial.”

“Why?” Angus asked.

The boar stared at Angus for a long moment, and then looked back at Barry, who shrugged.

“What have we done that would require us to stand trial?” Angus continued, “have we broken any laws of your land? Everyone we’ve met here so far has been very kind, and I think we’ve been kind in return. Why wouldn’t our meeting with the Royal Beasts be perfectly cordial?”

The boar paused to mull this over, and then beckoned the crew to follow them towards the Court.

Lup gave Angus a quiet high-five as they followed, and Magnus clapped him on the back hard enough to make him stumble a bit.

“Nice job, little man! Now we’ll get to meet the power bear!”

“What is the brute saying?” asked the boar over their shoulder.

“He’s having delusions of grandeur,” replied Taako, clearly startling the boar somewhat with his knowledge of the language. “He’s a big fan of the Bear of Power.”

The boar snorted again, and Angus still couldn’t tell if it was positive or negative. He didn’t have time to ask, either, because they had reached the entrance to the Court of the Royal Beasts.

The courtroom had clearly been merely a large clearing not too long before, but access to the Light had done a lot to spruce it up. Thin stalks of a plant fairly similar to bamboo had been woven into walls, loosening into a more open pattern to let sunlight in through the domed ceiling it formed. The floor was mostly well-kept grass, aside from a path of flat stones leading to a raised platform centered before the Royal Beasts’ dais. The dais itself didn’t appear to have undergone much renovation- Angus could tell from looking that the three massive pillars grown into one platform had been in place for a very, very long time. What hadn’t been there for long, he knew, was the Light of Creation. There it was, sitting on a proud pedestal in the center of the Beast’s stage.

“Newcomers,” boomed the Bear of Power, “state your purpose.”

Angus, Barry, and the twins all bowed low as Lup answered the Bear, with Angus translating for the rest of the IPRE.

“That object followed us from our plane into yours. We need it back.”

The animals in the Court shifted uncomfortably as the Bear of Power began to laugh, as condescendingly as a bear can. 

“And what could such fragile creatures as yourselves offer in return?” Angus was fairly certain that the Bear would be quirking an eyebrow, if he had one.

“We have knowledge,” answered Barry, just barely keeping his voice from trembling. “We come from a world profoundly different from this one, and we have so much to learn from one another. 

“And yet,” came the voice from the Owl of Wisdom, “it’s not very hard to figure out that the trade you are proposing is unequal. You wish to trade raw information about a plane we will never be impacted by beyond your arrival for a constantly regenerating entity of inspiration and understanding. How could you possibly justify this?”

“Because it’s ours, dog. He just said that.”

The Owl went still, then very deliberately turned to look at Taako, who had risen from his bow and was now posed with a hand on his hip.

“What did you just call me?”

“Dog? Like the turn of phrase, not like you’re a literal dog. I’m not actually an asshole. I mean I am, but-”

“What exactly are you implying about dogs?” The Wolf of Instinct stepped up to the edge of the stage, baring their teeth slightly.

“We would never say anything bad about dogs!” Cried Magnus, “Angus, tell them we all like dogs. And bears! We like bears.”

Angus, at this point, decided this had gone on far enough.

“Bear of Power, Owl of Wisdom, Wolf of Instinct, you are all very noble beings,” he said, standing and walking right up to the stage. “From what I’ve heard, you have a strong sense of right and wrong, and an obligation to follow it. Letting us have the Light is the right thing to do.

“The Light of Creation gave us the technology we needed to explore beyond our original plane, and odds are it’s the only way we’re ever going to get that plane back.”

“Get it back,” noted the Owl, “you’re fluent enough in our language that I think you would know the difference between getting something back, and getting back to it. Tell us, little one- what happened to your home?”

Before Angus could answer, the sky did it for him. A column of shimmering darkness crashed directly into the Light of Creation, obliterating the Royal Beasts entirely. The Court was in shambles within seconds, and before Angus could even process what was happening he was being scooped up into Magnus’s arms. The scene around him could’ve been taken directly out of one of his constant nightmares; the world was ending all over again, and yet again all Angus and his team could do was run.

The Starblaster was in the air within minutes, and Davenport’s expert flying got the ship out of the plane and back out towards the void. The area outside of the planar system was jiggling again, just like it had a year before, and it enveloped the Starblaster in exactly the same way; the crew passed between planar systems just like before, and then they were on the other side.

Just like before.

Angus reeled back from the railing of the Starblaster in shock. He could’ve sworn he had just been in the cabin. 

Across the deck, the rest of the crew was similarly disoriented. Magnus, one hand raised to a black eye that had healed months ago, broke the stunned silence.

“Whatever’s going on, I’m pretty sure it fucking sucks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here! Chapter two, all 3000+ words of it. The journey is underway, folks, and Angus is already disrupting the status quo of the canon plot.
> 
> Another huge thank you to my beta, kateybird, who's a wonderful writer and an even more wonderful friend. Their name would be a hyperlink there if I fuckin knew how to do that.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading! The comments on the last chapter were super sweet, so thank you so much if you commented or left kudos. 
> 
> Next chapter should be up by the next taz Thursday, but hopefully sooner. I know this is about to get buried in a million new fics bc the finale starts tomorrow (oh god the finale starts tomorrow), but i had to get it posted. Ive got me some plans for this story.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to everyone in the server for not only being the coolest squad ever but for having the angsty conversation that inspired me to start writing this.
> 
> A particularly huge thank you to my beta reader kateybird. You're the best for so many reasons.


End file.
